When a club gets relegated, there’s usually a pivotal defeat during the season which they can look back on as the moment their fate was effectively sealed.
And there’s no doubting that some worried Bolton fans are fearful Sunday’s demoralising 3-0 drubbing against Lancashire rivals Blackburn will send us into a rapid downward spiral towards the Championship.
If the dour 0-0 draw in the local derby with Wigan a few days earlier wasn’t bad enough, the crushing blow at Ewood Park felt like a fateful nail in our coffin as the players further underlined a complete lack of confidence in their own ability to dig us out of what’s fast becoming a very deep hole.
It truly was a woeful display from the defence right through to attack and we emphatically managed to make a pretty ordinary Rovers side, who have now beaten us twice this season, look like a team with genuine European aspirations.
Having kept four clean sheets in all competitions since Owen Coyle took charge at the Reebok, it was a shame to see all this previous hard work seemingly go up in smoke as Nikola Kalinic, Jason Roberts and Gael Givet all punished sloppy defending while also showing our strikers how it should be done.
Time and time again we get in forward positions but nobody seems to want to take responsibility for taking the shot on or delivering a decisive killer final ball – there’s simply far too much passing the buck and invariably any chances we do create go begging.
Failure to score means we’ve now extended our abysmal run without a Premier League goal to five games – a run which has also seen us held to a goalless draw at home to Fulham – and our last victory which came against Burnley last month now feels like a distant memory.
At least teams around such as Wolves, Hull, Portsmouth, Wigan, Sunderland and Burnley keep losing as well but unless our players start believing in themselves then I’m afraid there’s only one direction we’re heading.
Sure, this is a rather pessimistic view but it is hard for the fans to keep the faith when performances on the pitch have hardly improved at all since Gary Megson was sacked, although this can’t really be blamed on Coyle.
Unfortunately he took on a squad whose confidence was on the floor and it was always going to be an almighty effort to pick them up and inspire them to realise their potential.
However, it is his job to motivate the troops and it’s imperative he does so as quickly as possible because the next run of league games against Wolves, West Ham, Sunderland and Wigan will ultimately decide our destiny - . will it be Premier League or Championship?
With two of those matches at home – Wolves and Wigan – we can’t afford any less than eight points although following the slip-ups at Wigan and Blackburn you could now argue that we need a minimum of 10 if we’re to win our battle for survival.
We can’t stop believing and must continue to rally behind the team but on evidence of what we’ve seen in recent weeks, our optimism is running out.
